LAX shooting: Angelo Romero of San Pedro couldn’t get to the airport, opted for In-N-Out Burger

Angela Romero of San Pedro was driving her father to the airport Friday morning when they hit gridlock beneath the Sepulveda Boulevard Tunnel. Because they were in a tunnel, they couldn’t get radio reception. Ten minutes passed, then 20.

“I’m not thinking anything is wrong — it just seemed like regular L.A. traffic,” said Romero, 35. “Then all of a sudden we started hearing sirens and helicopters and I was like, ‘Oh crap.’”

When traffic loosened up and they emerged from the tunnel, Romero and her father learned about the shooting. Romero kept driving to the airport. They got close, but were directed to a special exit normally reserved for emergency vehicles.

“We saw lines of people sitting next to their luggage,” she said.

They decided to eat at an In-N-Out Burger where Sepulveda Boulevard splits off into Lincoln Boulevard.

Around noon Friday, Romero, whose father is headed to Mexico to settle some family business, said the gravity of the situation hadn’t hit her yet.

“I’m only hearing it through the radio in audio format,” she said, speaking to a reporter by phone from the restaurant. “It would be very different if I was in front of a TV, seeing people being scared. For me it’s an inconvenience. I understand when I go home it’s going to hit harder, especially knowing someone died.”

She said when she heard the initial reports on the radio, she figured the incident would somehow be related to the TSA, “because of the dry ice-bombing thing,” she said. “I just felt like, ‘What is the problem with TSA agents at LAX?”

Early reports that the shooter was an off-duty TSA officer seemed to confirm her suspicion, but officials on Friday afternoon were adamant that the shooter is not a TSA officer.